Gaming Posts - Page 12

With $1.428 billion net revenue posted for the reported period, EA blew their $1.275 billion expectation out of the water - claimed by CEO Andrew Wilson as due to "great execution with our leading IP, new mobile hits and continued strength in our catalogue of top games and services."

Proud of their results, Wilson went on to state that "Electronic Arts delivered amazing experiences to our players in Q3, from the award-winning Dragon Age: Inquisition to SimCity BuildIt to our live services for FIFA, Madden NFL and more," as seen in their recent press release. The results achieved this quarter mark a record for Electronic Arts, seeing it ranked as the best "cash flow for a calendar year period."

Further results include EA being listed as the #1 publisher on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One - due to their releases of Dragon Age: Inquisition, FIFA 15, NHL 15, Madden NFL 15, UFC, Titanfall, Battlefield 4 and FIFA 14. They also pushed through 22 million downloads on SimCity Buildit and saw their titles hit the top 5 iOS downloads in more than 100 countries.

Between PC gaming and console gaming, there is a lot that gamers have to be thankful for - but it could be a rather dull year, according to an industry analyst.

"My general thesis is that nothing is going to happen in 2015, it's going to be really, really dull," said Nicholas Lovell, founder of Gamesbrief and industry analyst, in a statement to the Guardian.

Don't worry, gamers, Lovell is speaking more towards an industry shakeup, not that new game titles won't be entertaining to play. There will be plenty of new game titles for PC, console, and mobile gamers, with studios excited to push the limits of recent hardware improvements.

Not only has the popular North American-based Counter-Strike league ESEA thrown the ban-hammer at some professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players caught in a betting ring, but Valve themselves have spoken - barring these players from all future 'Valve majors'.

The betting ring saw players gather upwards of $10,000 worth of in-game items thanks to one singular match in which members created numerous betting accounts and purposefully altered the final score to suit their own benefit.

In an official release, ESEA stated that these bans were originally listed as one-year only on their platform, however "ESEA reserves the right to extend the bans indefinitely."

Elite: Dangerous launched in December last year, but it'll be many more years before the entire galaxy has been mapped. The game takes place in a one-to-one recreation of our Milky Way galaxy, something that will take lifetimes to explore.

There are over 400 billion star systems to explore, but with part of the leveling mechanic in the game incentivising exploration of unknown star systems, Elite: Dangerous is being mapped quickly. At the current rate of exploration, Elite: Dangerous' playerbase is visiting 17,585 new star systems each day. This breaks down into 732 per hour, or 12 per minute.

If this rate continues and there isn't an influx of players in the short term, it would take a gigantic 150,895 years to map the entire galaxy. The developer behind the game is running a content for the first player to reach Elite status in exploration, giving away a $1500 prize. The first player to reach Elite in all three statuses will receive $15,000.

Let's start the week off with some big news for Electronic Arts, which is charging real money for in-game gas in Need for Speed: No Limits. Yes, you will need to buy gas through in-app purchases, or you could wait for your tank to fill back up. This isn't something you want to wait for when you feel the need, the need for speed.

Need for Speed: No Limits is currently an iPhone exclusive, but will be reaching Android in the near future. In the game, each race requires a certain amount of gas, so some gamers will choose to front up real money to pay for gas, so that they can play at their own pace. There are varying levels of currency in the game, with the real-world currency applying to 'gold'.

What do you think of EA charging for gas in a game? What will we be paying for next? Oxygen?

Borderlands is a massive franchise, so most fans would kill to be a part of it, right? Well, Gearbox Software is recruiting people for the next game in the franchise, where you don't need any qualifications to join the team.

Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software said: "We are recruiting for next Borderlands. This is the big one". No qualifications are required, with the studio looking for a wide variety of people, stretching from writers to art designers and engine programmers. Unfortunately there's no information on Borderlands 3 just yet, but we should expect an announcement soon.

The EA Sports Madden 15 video game title has predicted the New England Patriots will defeat the Seattle Seahawks with a 28-24 victory during Super Bowl XLIX. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was selected as the MVP, racking up 335 yards and four touchdowns during Super Bowl Sunday.

Madden NFL 15 uses updated rosters and the simulations take place using the Microsoft Xbox One.

Madden NFL 15 is currently available for the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Xbox One, and Sony PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 game consoles.

NVIDIA's 900 series has proven to be a big hit, but a recent issue with the GTX 970 has many users complaining. The problem with the 970 occurs when the GPU memory on the card is fully utilized. Once the 970's GPU memory is filled past 3.2 GiB the bandwidth drops below 20% of expected performance. The precipitous drop leads to speeds as low as 22 GBytes/s, which is much less than the 150 GBytes/s average.

This problem seems to be confined to the GTX 970; the 980 still performs within expectations when GPU memory is full. The net result is severe stuttering during gaming, and many users have taken to the NVIDIA forums to complain about the issue. NVIDIA has issued a statement that they are exploring the problem and will provide an update soon.

GPU memory architecture is somewhat similar to the overall design of all computer systems. The memory bus is a linearly scalable bus, which means all RAM components connected have to respond with the same latency and bandwidth, regardless of how much RAM is present. GPU's are also designed with the same approach, so the results are definitely not expected. The problem is most likely a firmware bug, in light of the fact that these memory subsystems are almost identical on the GTX 970 and GTX 980.

Ubisoft has taken the questionable action of banning gamers without warning over the last several weeks. The issue stems from Ubisoft's distaste for several services that sell game licenses at steep discounts.

The affected users have had their licenses for popular games, such as Far Cry 4 and AC: Unity, revoked without warning. The issue stems from the fact that these gamers purchased their keys from services such as G2A.com and Kinguin. G2A.com and Kinguin provide steep discounts for game licenses by purchasing license keys in countries with reduced prices, then making them available to anyone globally.

It's disconcerting to see Ubisoft targeting end users, instead of the companies undertaking the questionable buying/selling policies. It is certainly possible that many who purchase the games are simply unaware that these sites are redistributing game keys to disparate regions, or that there is an issue with the practice.

We only just reported on the first rumor of Call of Duty: World at War II, but it looks like this could be wrong. Instead, Activision will reportedly announce Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Whichever one gets announced, we know a new COD is on the way.

When the news first broke, we were teased that Activision would reveal a new Call of Duty title on May 4. Soon after this happened, Xbox Canada's Community Manager, Ray Patel, tweeted a teaser image which had a hidden message inside. When translated, it matched up with what the leaked poster had to say about the May 4 reveal. Industry insider "shinobi602" has now chimed in, tweeting: "This should be real entertaining since it's not happening," adding "More info regarding Call of Duty: World at War 2 coming soon".

This is where it gets confusing, as shinobi602 replied to a fans tweet, where he said: "Bookmark this reply. Come May, and watch when World at War 2 doesn't happen". After that, he replied to a tweet that asked which era the new Call of Duty would be based in, to which he replied "Just remember what Treyarch's big games are". Something that could hint toward Black Ops III. It's all a big whirlwind of mess right now, but I'm sure the picture will become much clearer in the coming months.